ARLINGTON -- The Nationals arrived in Texas following a hot-hitting sweep in Miami. But their bats cooled off in the series opener, and just two days after recording a season-high 14 hits, they were held to only three.

The Nationals' four-game winning streak was snapped by the Rangers, 7-1, on Tuesday at Globe Life Field.

Washington tied for its second-fewest hits in a single game this season (it put up just two hits vs. the Phillies on April 5). The Nats were held to three hits last Wednesday by the Dodgers, but erupted for 40 in a four-game series against the Marlins this weekend.

“It wasn’t very good,” manager Dave Martinez said of the Nats offense. “Look, we’ve been playing well. We hit the ball really well before we came in here. So let’s come back tomorrow and try to go 1-0 tomorrow. The bats weren’t good today, but I’m not going to lose sleep over it. It’s one game.”

CJ Abrams opened the game by inching out a single on a chopper to Rangers starter Jon Gray. The dribbler had an expected batting average (xBA) of .310. With that hit, Abrams has reached base safely in a career-best 16 consecutive games.

Later that inning, Luis García Jr. drove in Abrams with a two-out line-drive single to left field. The Nats had been 6-4 when scoring first, but this early offense soon was stifled.

The Nationals then went hitless against Gray until Trey Lipscomb’s two-out single in the fifth inning. Lipscomb, ranked as the Nats’ No. 16 prospect by MLB Pipeline, beat out a soft ground ball to catcher Jonah Heim with a .170 xBA.

“He really kept the ball down,” said Martinez. “He got a lot of called strikes down. The slider was really, really good. It was almost like a cutter. So we just couldn’t get the ball up in the zone. I think we got one ball Luis hit. Other than that, everything was down. We couldn’t do anything with it.”

The Nationals have been effective this season getting offensive momentum going once they reach base with their speed and athleticism, but they did not draw any walks the entire game. The Nats were retired in order in six of Gray’s eight innings.

“His ball was moving very well,” said Eddie Rosario. “His slider was breaking very well. Unfortunately, we were chasing a lot of pitches out of the zone, but he had his moment today, so you’ve got to give him credit.”

Gray and reliever Cole Winn needed just 110 combined pitches.

“I felt like as the day went on, we made better pitches,” Gray said. “We wanted to be in the zone early, obviously not walk guys, not fool around. I was trying to be as efficient as possible. So I thought, just mixing in the zone, we got away with a lot more than we usually do. But it was really good.”

The Nationals were eyeing a series opener win to finish .500 in the first full month of the season, but going 14-15 through April gave them a lot of encouragement in spite of the result Tuesday night. Washington is 10-7 in road games, tying its best road start since 2018.

“You look back and there’s some games that we could have won, we could have been above .500,” Martinez said. “But overall, we’re playing good baseball. We’re playing hard. … It’s nice to win games in April, but now we’re going into May. I break the season down, and I always tell myself if we can win 15 games a month, that’s pretty good. So let’s win 16 next month.”